


Uncle Cor

by Pookaseraph



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Families of Choice, Game Spoilers, Gen, Growing Up, Personal Growth, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 19:15:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10394211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pookaseraph/pseuds/Pookaseraph
Summary: Cor fights to balance the duty of being an avuncular influence on a young man... and making certain said young man isn't a national security issue in the making.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For the Kink Meme: http://ffxv-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/3016.html?thread=2076872#cmt2076872
> 
> If you found the way Prompto's body issues or his change as portrayed in the Brotherhood anime to be not to your liking you won't like this story. It takes the topic and expands on it heavily.

Cor frowned at the general intelligence pool that was scattered around one of the higher floors the Citadel, noting the trembling-quiet that pervaded it. Six-Damned Niffs and just the whole world frustrated him anymore. Everyone was on high alert after the attack on Prince Noctis, but as far as Cor was aware the boy was recovering. The tenor of the community was... staid. Everyone was waiting for the news that the boy _would_ recover, the alternative was unquestionably bad.

His eyes finally found his target, Vivian, sitting at her desk, sharp features softened by long, dark hair and round glasses that she always wore at the computer.

"Did the Niffs roll over and play dead while I wasn't looking?" He asked, leaning in to press his customary soft kiss to her jaw, which she responded with a warm hug at odds with her colder face.

"You know they didn't," she answered with an annoyed sigh.

Cor settled into his position at the edge of her desk, leaning against it, side to side with Viv's chair, looking down at her. She seemed upset. The two of them had been partners in the Crownsguard for years, Viv would find the intelligence problem... Cor would fix it, usually with violence. "Niffs?" He probed.

She shook her head. "Prompto."

"Ah..." Always Prompto. Her son now... Cor still remembered the day they'd made it back across the ocean, stole out of Cartanica in the dead of night with the little child and their defector scientist, Ghest. The man had taken Viv's last name, Argentum, and had become a valuable intelligence asset and a peerless scientist to the Lucian cause... the two were a relatively happy couple now, if unconscionably busy. Ghest was second-to-none at helping the cause when it came to unraveling any scientific notes Lucian intelligence managed to get out of Gralea, and Viv was a peerless analyst.

"He's just been so... withdrawn. I thought kids were supposed to at least be teenagers before they got like that."

Viv... bless her, was much better with computers and numbers than she was with people. Cor smiled in response.

"Will you--?"

"Of course." It was his Crown-assigned duty regardless. Cor was trusted with the intelligence about Prompto's status, largely because he'd been there when the boy was rescued, and he was trusted to be fair because he cared about Viv, but also strict, as was his nature.

Cor spent the next half-hour or so at the store, picking up as much as he could by way of fruit and vegetables, some leaner meat... Viv tried, so did Ghest, but damn if the kid didn't get much of any attention, and a home cooked meal happened about once in an age. He made his way to the quiet, suburban part of Lucis on the back of his motorcycle, pulling it in to the customary spot next to the mailbox that pissed Viv off just a bit before he went to the door and knocked.

In some ways, seeing the quiet kid that answered the door broke his heart. "Oh... Mr. Leonis... mom and dad aren't home."

"I know," he answered, which was enough to have the boy move out of the doorway. "Your mom asked me to look in on you since she's going to be home late."

'Since she's going to be home late' was about as regular as the sun, but neither of them mentioned that.

He started with a quick dinner, a curry with rice he'd picked up a taste for in Galahd before it had fallen, and he settled the light and filling meal down in front of the boy, hoping he hadn't already scarfed down another burger dinner... it was impossible to tell, after all, when the trash bin was little more than fast food containers, smoothie cups, and pastry wrappers with little to differentiate what day they had arrived.

Cor waited, and Prompto said nothing as he picked at the food.

"How's school?" Cor asked, finally.

"It's... alright." Prompto fell silent for a long minute before he continued. "Do you know if Prince Noctis will be alright?"

It made sense that the boy would ask him, but Cor wasn't really certain how to answer. He was still recovering, which certainly was better than the alternative, but that wasn't a clean answer. "Everyone hopes so," he eventually answered.

After dinner, Cor settled into the kitchen to work, dicing, slicing, and peeling, setting the second set of hands he was tending to to work on their own tasks. He knew Viv had always been a terrible cook, and Ghest wasn't much better, but he did wish she'd at least pull _something_ together now and again. Prompto was _nine_ , he could hardly cook a complex meal for himself, and 'don't touch the knives without supervision' was a pretty solid rule.

Cor, unfortunately, was no chatter, so he silently pulled together beet soup and a meat pie that he could leave in the freezer. "How's that camera working?"

"It's good," Prompto answered, and it was the first sign of life he'd seen in almost two hours, the kid even seemed to perk up.

He had to wait several minutes before he nodded. "Well, show me, why don't you?"

"Oh..." Prompto scurried away, and Cor didn't even argue about fact he was running with a knife, which at least got set down before the boy came back. He spent some time reviewing the photos... most of them were horrible, with no sense of lighting or frame, merely the boy pointing the camera at something and saying 'sure, why not', but Cor couldn't fault the enthusiasm.

They settled into the couch after. "Your mom said you got a cell phone?"

"Yeah..."

Cor held out a hand, and Prompto handed it over. He tried not to think about the fact that it was filled with exactly three numbers: Mom (W), Dad (W), and Home... Cor sighed and dialed in his own number.

"Thanks, Mr. Leonis..." Prompto mumbled, taking the phone back and staring down at it, perhaps thinking the same thing Cor had.

He held out his hand again, and the phone was passed back. 'Uncle Cor'. He typed it into the phone rather than his name. He handed it back, making sure the boy could see the change, and looked away when the boy screwed his eyes closed to keep the tears in his eyes from being shed.

"I know--" He said, started, and then shook his head, continuing. "I know your mom's working a lot lately... and your dad... and I know that's hard. She tries, though..."

"I know," Prompto answered.

"You be good," he told the boy, ruffling his hair and standing. "And you can call if you need anything, alright?"

He knew he wouldn't, Cor knew that deep in his bones, but he had to say it, for the kid to know he was at least not completely alone in the world.

*

By the time Prompto was twelve, Cor had pretty much decided that the kid was a regular, run of the mill, plain old boring sort of kid. Sure he'd been genetically engineered to be the perfect soldier, but all Cor could see was a depressed, lonely boy whose mother and father were too damn busy for him.

Of course, it would take him almost three years after he'd even received Cor's phone number to completely upend that assessment and actually called him.

He barely even recognized the number, just brought the phone to his ear with the customary: 'Leonis', and waited.

"Mr. L-- Un... um... Uncle Cor," his name tumbled out in a mess and Cor pulled the phone from his ear just to check that it was, in fact, Prompto who was calling him.

"Hey there, Prompto," he answered, finding himself a quiet corner of the Citadel for when whatever massive bombshell this kid was about to drop came. He was almost immediately worried for Viv and Ghest, mostly because they were his go-to and he would like to have thought he would have known if there was an accident...

"How... um..." A long, drawn out, and completely unhelpful set of phone noises followed, ums, uhs, stutters, and the like, with no point to them that Cor did his best to patiently sit through before the point finally arrived: "I want to get in shape."

Cor again took the phone from his ear and looked at it, saw, again, that it was Prompto who was calling, and he did recognize the boy's voice, of course... but... he put the phone back again and considered how to continue. "It's... a life-long sort of thing," he said, finally.

"I know," the boy answered, more confident now. "I understand. I... started running but I'm not losing weight and..."

The rough problem was obvious, of course, Cor knew the kid's diet was terrible, he could have run forty miles a day and not lost weight while he was eating nothing but cheeseburgers, but that was a conversation for... not him. And yet he was going to have it anyway.

"Alright, I'll be over..." He checked his watch, he had a meeting with Clarus in fifteen, and he wasn't going to blow that off for anything, not without an emergency. "In three hours, when I get there... there better be no donuts, no burger wrappers..."

"Yup! Yes, Uncle Cor, you got it!"

The meeting, as it turned out, did involve Prompto in a backwards sort of way as well. After Gralea had awoken Shiva's wrath and she had completely destroyed the Gralean military might, the work on the MT program had kicked up, and the very first reports of MTs being seen out in the field were starting to trickle in.

Cor stopped by the grocery and made what must have looked like a truly remarkable shopping trip, before he arrived at the Argentum house and the usually sedate Prompto came out to the motorcycle and help carry in two of the bags that Cor had had to sling at the handlebars. He was impressed, the garbage was full, and taken out, and he could see that there was actually a fairly sizable amount of vegetable leavings in the bin.

He'd checked with Viv quickly before leaving, and he knew she was alright with the idea of Prompto cooking a bit more, but he couldn't deny that twelve was hardly much better than nine when it came to the truly exceptional latchkey nature of Prompto's childhood.

Cor started with breakfast, the pounds of sugary cereal went out, and in came unsweetened yogurt, berries, and a time-honored bachelor trick of scrambling an egg in the microwave. Omelettes or something similar could follow if the change took and Viv was alright with the actually graduating to skillet use. Lunch in the cafeteria was dismissed, it might have been where the Prince of Lucis went to school, but it was still salty and fatty at best, chopped vegetables, whole grains, nuts and lean, fresh meat went in to five neat cases.

"I do this for lunch a lot," Cor said. "When I have free time during the week or an off day I cook a chicken or steak and steam vegetables. Sometimes it's the best cooked meal I get that day because of that."

"You eat this?" Prompto asked, and Cor laughed.

"Of course, you didn't think I just cooked you something I didn't eat myself?" He asked. "I've lived on my own since I was only a few years older than you."

Cor had been the opposite, much poorer and much better tended, but he understood the struggle of being alone all the same.

Dinner was oddly the greatest struggle, even though it was the meal he most often prepared for the boy. He decided to leave it at soups for the day, keeping them as light and filling as possible.

"Absolutely nothing is going to change overnight," he said, finally, when he sat across the table from the boy and looked him in the eye. "I've helped a lot of the young men and women in the Crownsguard learn to tend themselves," he continued. He was the no nonsense man the rank and file respected and feared for a reason. "You'll get a bit more energy, and I don't want to visit in a week and find you've started eating a bagel and a cheese sandwich and nothing else."

"I tried to make salads..."

Cor arched an eyebrow.

"So bad..."

He chuckled. "Try anything in the produce aisle a few times," he advised. "Steam it, sauté it... eat it raw. You don't have to like peppers, but don't turn your nose up at the whole aisle."

That would put the boy a few steps above the Crown Prince if Cor was informed on the matter, which he was.

"I like the curry you make..." Prompto said. He always thanked Cor, of course, but rarely had a preference.

"I'll teach you next time."

Prompto beamed.

Next time was almost three months, unfortunately, even with Cor's own good intentions. For the briefest of moments, Cor thought he'd had the wrong damn house. The Prompto that opened the door was still well overweight, but the worst of the belly and jowls were gone, but more than that was the _smile_.

"Hey, Uncle Cor," Prompto said, smile bright and earnest.

"Hey there, Prompto. Damn, I'm starting to think you're doing just fine without me..."

The crushed face followed, and Cor kicked himself mentally before he ruffled the boy's hair and headed inside.

"But then who would teach you the best damn Galahdian curry in all Lucis?"

"You're not kidding," Prompto said. "I tried to go to one of those carryout places and it tasted like a burnt shoe."

"Yeah?" Cor was honestly surprised. He was a man who ate a damn pizza or a burger plenty, but clean eating was hard and balanced eating was even harder.

"Gross," Prompto agreed.

Cor was then treated to an energetic tour of the refrigerator that allowed him to see the other end of the explanation for why Viv actually ate food at work. Ironically, that meant she looked less gaunt than usual. Prompto hadn't just taken over his own meals, but those for the whole family. The freezer was packed with a mix of food as well, and then Prompto showed off a calendar with short notations of what he'd eaten, and even prouder information about his fitness achievements, personal best distances and times for his runs.

Cor found himself subjected to a stream of consciousness ramble as they discussed spice blooming, this time about how Prompto was considering asking for a dog to go running with, and Cor listened to him debate the merits of the dog with himself.

It was... odd. He knew from experience that at least some of the cheer and socialization must have been forced, Prompto was a quiet, introspective boy, but it was very clear that he was pushing himself, hard.

He made his usual report, didn't even think much odd about it. The reports to Clarus on the topic were rote at that point, boring, but he was called in to his superior's office only a day and a half later.

"There was... a concern," Clarus said.

Cor frowned. "One of the newer recruits?" He asked.

"The... boy." Cor frowned. "Argentum."

"Hrm?"

"What do you make of his... transformation." He knew Clarus had the best of intentions, but the tone was quite loaded, and Cor did his best not to bristle. He had been given the assignment because one could hardly ask a mother and father to report on their son, unbiased.

"He wants to better himself," Cor answered with a shrug. "He doesn't talk about his circumstances, not with Viv or Ghest, and certainly not with me..." Truth to tell he wasn't even certain Prompto knew that Cor knew... it wasn't exactly the sort of thing you asked a kid even if Prompto was rapidly approaching teen years. "He's a quiet kid, and if I had to guess I'd say it was because he wants to be more popular. He'll be in high school soon... I seem to recall that being an age where a certain son of yours decided to start getting a full sleeve tattoo planned..."

Clarus took the barb in stride, with only a slight glance. "You don't find it peculiar that the MT program in Gralea is on an upswing and the only MT we have to observe suddenly--"

"My Lord." Cor knew he could get away with that tone, but not often. "I can talk to him about it... but Prompto seems.... earnest and self-motivated. If anything I imagine his genetic... tampering is allowing him to actually take the initiative more easily, but trust me when I've seen plenty of boring humans make the same change at any age."

"I want him under tighter observation," Clarus said.

Cor would have argued if he thought it would have done any good. Instead, he offered a bow and headed back to his day, considering how he wanted to approach the young man he did earnestly consider a nephew of sorts... while harboring just the faintest concern that the boy was executing some sort of long-dormant programming.

The answer came in the form of a few strength training bands, jump ropes, and weights that would fit in the small, suburban Argentum house. The negative was that he felt like a bit of a traitor to the boy as he showed him how to use the items to work at toning as he continued to trim down. It also meant he was far more likely to have the success that would draw even further suspicion. Cor instructed the boy in form and posture, and he used the excuse of the need for appropriate form to step up his frequency of visits.

"So..." He glanced over to Prompto where the boy was cutting vegetables for his lunches. Cor was working on a stir fry of his own for their dinner. "I have to ask... why all this?"

He gestured with his free hand, trying to encompass everything, trying to be a man who Prompto could confide in while knowing he would immediately need to betray those confidences for King and Country.

Prompto blushed, that much Cor caught immediately, pale cheeks going ruddy, and that more than anything made Cor relax, anything that would cause the boy to blush could hardly be some cold-hearted, calculating programming.

"There's..." Prompto flushed brighter. "A girl."

That... well it explained everything, really. Cor caught himself before he sighed in relief. "Pretty?" Cor asked, knowing he'd brought it on himself and not really able to backpedal, but also knowing he was a 'cool uncle' which meant that his parents would never hear about it if Cor didn't.

"I don't... know, actually... yeah?" Prompto looked down. "It... so you remember that puppy I found?"

"Tiny," Cor did remember. Prompto was both his nephew and his assignment, he would be remiss if he forgot.

"And then one day she ran away and I just..." Prompto shrugged. "A few weeks later, I got a letter from this girl, Lunafreya."

Cor did startle at that, although the name would be well-known to almost anyone, the girl had just ascended to become the youngest Oracle in the history of the title.

"The dog was hers, Pryna... and... she knew I'd helped her because the bandage I used had my name on it... she said that I must be friends with Prince Noctis, since we went to school together..."

That did sound like something the young girl would do. Cor didn't know the Oracle personally, and had not been a part of the small expedition to take Noctis to Tenebrae, but he did know that the Oracle was always a woman of strength, character, and compassion, so it only made sense. He also knew that the Oracle had kept in touch with Noctis over the years by means of a book that she passed between them via her Messengers.

"She... made it sound like Prince Noctis was alone... and..." Prompto looked down, clearly still embarrassed. "I know you work in the Citadel, right? It's not that strange, right? Prince Noctis and I could be friends?"

Sometimes Cor had uncharitable thoughts about the young prince, but he was old enough to remember when he'd been a precocious and outgoing boy, and how sullen and withdrawn he'd been since his injuries... the easy friends he would have made in school barely existed, and Cor was also aware that Noctis was beginning to understand exactly how much of a burden his royal blood would eventually be. Cor could think of nothing that the boy could use more than a friend. No doubt Lunafreya had known exactly that.

Cor could think of absolutely nothing that would make the King, and Clarus, more suspicious, however. 'Of course, Your Majesty, nothing to worry about a cultured and potentially programmed child becoming close to your son...'

"I think..." Cor didn't know exactly what to say, and he could see that Prompto was steeling himself for a denial. "I think you don't need all this to be someone's friend."

"But... Prince Noctis!" Prompto said, as though that explained everything. "Sure he's quite, and doesn't play with the other kids much, but he needs someone... _cool_ , you know? Someone who can keep up with him and..." Prompto held his hands out, as though encompassing everything he wasn't and everything he was and explaining everything. "I tried to say hi to him..."

Cor nodded, lending a hopefully sympathetic ear. He wondered if Noctis had been a brat... he could be sometimes, even when he wasn't trying.

"I tripped... and... that's when I knew I had to be... good enough." Cor heard something be glossed over, he had too many young men under his command to miss it, but it didn't sound sinister, just the exchange had embarrassed him.

Cor was silent for a long minute. He never had many aspirations towards parenthood, and rarely stayed in a relationship long enough to consider it, but he imagined this must be what parenthood was, the awkward moments... everything of the sort. "You can't make the Prince be your friend," Cor decided, finally, quite reasonably he thought. "But... he could use one."

He knew Gladio tolerated the Prince _at best_ , and that Ignis doted on the boy more than was likely right, but that although they were friends they did have station and duty between them.

"You can't..." Cor sighed, not sure how to say what he meant to, but meaning to impart wisdom he learned long ago. "You can't just do this for a girl... or a boy..."

Prompto flushed, possibly at the implications, or just because it was an embarrassing topic.

"It's for me, too," he said, promised. "I feel so much better already! And my energy is..." He continued to yammer, and Cor couldn't deny that the chubby boy next to him had become something of a ball of energy, and nothing that he could call 'quiet' or 'shy', it made him smile and made him proud, and Cor couldn't help but admire the change, even if the first spark had obviously come from a less than internal source.

"Alright, alright," he waved, cutting Prompto off, wondering when that had ever happened before in the boy's entirely life. Cor laughed. "Your focus is admirable."

Prompto's smile lit up the entire kitchen.

*

The shit hit the fan exactly three days after Noctis started high school with the fated sentence that Cor would remember forever, although he hadn't been there to hear the words spoken:

'I went to the arcade with my friend Prompto.'

There was a _seventeen man_ intelligence meeting that went on for almost twenty-four hours to deal with the the meltdown that followed. Thankfully, the very nature of the meeting itself meant that Prompto had three very important advocates: Viv, Ghest, and Cor himself. Ghest had his own arguments and thoughts, all of them scientific and laden with the sort of jargon that always drove him nuts when Viv had unleashed that crap on him when they'd been partners, and he could tell that Clarus and Regis both simply couldn't buy it, no matter how innocuous the man tried to make it seem.

Cor had made his reports, and had received his various orders over the years. Although there was always a matter of the Prince's desires himself, Cor wasn't surprised that Prompto had been a quick and easy inclusion for Noctis. Prompto's junior high years had transformed him from the class lump to the class clown, and although it made Prompto blush to mention it he'd also been upgraded to 'dorky, but cute', which apparently wasn't hurt at all when Prompto had hit puberty hard enough to grant the better part of a foot and visible abs.

Although to Cor he would always be a slightly neurotic kid with a bundle of insecurities, his outward appearance was bright, happy, funny, and attractive-- a near-perfect compliment for the withdrawn Prince.

Of those in the room, Cor was fairly certain only Clarus and Regis were fully briefed as to Prompto's confidences so many years ago, the inclusion of Lunafreya in the equation... Cor hadn't even mentioned it to Viv, out of respect for what little privacy he could provide the boy.

It was finally, in the twenty-second hour of the day-long meeting that Cor had drawn His Majesty and Clarus aside, arms crossed over his chest, leaning against a wall, when he made his last argument:

"He can't fight for shit," Cor began. "I know you have your concerns that Lunafreya may hold you responsible for the destruction of Tenebrae and the death of her mother... but do you really think the girl that's been writing back and forth with him for almost a decade... the _Oracle_ for Six's sake, would put the Chosen King in harm's way?"

"She may not know," Clarus argued, reasonably.

"Or she knows everything," Cor answered. "She has that Messenger following her everywhere. Let's not pretend any of us ordered one of the first MT batch stolen out of Gralea for humanitarian reasons. We got a defector and a lab rat who was fortunate enough to have Viv take a shine to him on the way home."

"And you," Regis pointed out, but there was a smile on his lips, and Cor knew that at least some of what he said was getting through to his friend and liege.

"And me," Cor admitted, grudgingly. It was a natural consequence of the assignment, Cor _was_ Prompto's uncle, simple as that. He heard from the boy less now, and no doubt a different set of people would begin to take over observing the new friend now that he was directly in the Prince's orbit, but Cor couldn't deny real feelings, and a fact that he adored Prompto. "I know it's... tainted, but I've known Ghest for years, he insists that nothing like a mechanical indoctrination could have occurred at that age. He barely had enough brain... whatever for it, he's a human boy, and a very kind one at that. Noctis could do much worse, all told, when it comes to friends."

Cor watched the two men glance at each other, their silent reading of each other's thoughts a bit strange to see even after decades, but it seemed, finally, Cor had hit home.

Regis sighed, and then nodded. "We'll step up the observation presence a bit. It's only natural now that Noctis wants to... go on excursions. He's been begging me to let him move out, so let him think it's just about that..."

Cor wasn't touching that argument with a ten-foot pole.

Things went back to normal a bit, Prompto called him to give him the news 'he said I was _funny_ ' and Cor shook his head and laughed, because Prompto couldn't see him, and gave him the congratulations the boy plainly wanted. The war with the Niffs heated up more, and Cor saw Prompto less and less, and it did bother him. He read the reports now and again, making certain he kept up with the boy, made sure that the progress he'd made on his esteem, or at least the facsimile that came with teenage years, lingered and couldn't help but read it with a certain amount of pride.

He knew that there were still the duties of the Prince that would complicate things... might even hurt Prompto in the end, but they were the problems of tomorrow, and Cor could at least allow a young man happiness. Whether he meant Noctis, Prompto, or both of them, Cor wasn't entirely certain.

Right now, however, he was playing the part of a very annoyed chauffeur.

Now he knew how Ignis must always feel.

After five minutes, he gave up the duty of standing next to the running car, turning it off and taking measured steps through the hallway of Noctis's high school. He found Noctis at one of the many shaded areas towards the back of the building, hiding under a tree, phone out, tapping frantically while Prompto did the same beside him.

A moment later he cleared his throat. Noctis looked up with the look of practiced boredom of a sixteen year old that often grated heavily on Cor's nerves. Prompto, to Cor's great relief and pride, however, straightened immediately, set his phone down, and sat up ramrod straight.

"Uncle Cor?"

"Uncle?!" Noctis said, face shocked as he looked between Prompto and Cor, his own phone gracelessly landed on his lap.

"Uh, yeah, dude, he's like my mom's best friend, they work together." Prompto's hands returned to the animated gestures they often did anymore when he was telling a story. "I've known him since I was a baby."

Cor smiled, just slightly, at the assessment. He and Vivian had been quite close in their youth, but he knew that time had drawn them apart to some extent. He did, at least, still work with her, although to a more savvy man like Noctis the intelligence community and the Crownsguard proper were hardly 'together'.

"She and I were partners in the Crownsguard before you were born," Cor answered, smiling. Prompto, of course, knew some of the story now - at least Vivian had told Cor as much - and the slight fear crossed his features before Cor smiled to ease the tension. "I am not, however, the chauffeur for a trip down memory lane. You were due at the Citadel thirty minutes ago."

"Right..." Noctis shrugged, not at all apologetically, and shouldered his bag.

"Keep up the good work," Cor told Prompto, and the boy responded with an enthusiastic thumbs up.

Cor turned sharply, and began to walk back towards the car, willing to allow the Prince at least a small measure of dignity in front of his friend.

"Why didn't you tell me you knew _The Immortal_ ," Noctis hissed, far too loud for Cor not to hear. "'Uncle Cor', holy shit."

Cor took a moment to appreciate that at least as far as the Prince was concerned he still apparently had the 'it' that made him terrifying, and meant that despite the blasé front, Noctis still was in awe of him enough for respect.

"The Immortal?" Prompto asked... and a brief moment later Cor realized that Prompto knew his mother and father worked in intelligence. Prompto had once or twice asked him if he was a spy, but Cor had always hedged on an actual explanation that didn't involve: 'the King's Shield points and I make it dead'. 

Cor hardly made it a point to explain that month long absences were usually due to Cor fighting along various fronts of the Niflheim conflict... and that his nephew may very well have had no idea that 'worked in the Crownsguard' actually meant 'second in command of it below the second most powerful Lord of Lucis after the King'.

"Just a nickname I picked up," he answered. Cor hated the damn thing to some extent, even as he knew he had to wear it with pride. "The ticket booth for memory lane continues to be closed, Your Highness."

That got Noct moving, at least, and this time Cor didn't allow him that dignity, instead ushering him out of the high school like the naughty puppy that he was.

"For real?" Noctis finally asked when he was settled into the back of the car and Cor turned the ignition back on. "Like you're friends with Prompto's mom?"

"Yes," he answered, checking the mirrors and heading out into the light afternoon traffic. "As I said, we were partners in the Crownsguard, I introduced her to her husband, I've been a family friend of the Argentums before Prompto was born."

"I didn't know you had..." Noctis trailed off... "Friends?"

Cor supposed that was natural, children rarely appreciated the idea that adults had personal lives. "I have friends."

Noctis, at least, fell silent, and Cor took great pleasure in that silence for at least three minutes.

"Can I ask you a sort of weird question?" Noctis asked.

Cor considered asking if his refusal would keep the question from being asked, but he liked that Noctis saw him as terrifying rather than wry. "Go ahead."

"Prompto used to be..." Cor could _hear_ the Prince searching for the politic word. "Heavy, right?"

Cor suddenly found himself worried for the response, he didn't think Noctis would dump a good, fast friend over something so shallow but... "He did."

"Okay... yeah..." Noctis nodded. "Good."

"Good?" Cor couldn't help himself but ask.

"Oh, just when we met in high school he played it off like we'd never met," Noctis said. "But we went to elementary school together, dad made me go to that prep thing for junior high and then in high school he was back. He was nice... I wanted to know I wasn't crazy, I guess, thinking it was him."

Cor tilted the mirror so that Noctis could most certainly not see that Cor was smiling. It would ruin every ounce of reputation if he turned into a doting uncle before the Prince. It was odd that in one small moment the Prince could prove he had a considerable heart, but Cor was pleased to know that beneath the sullen teen was a genuinely caring boy.

Prompto, sadly enough, became more staid and distant with him in response. Apparently learning that 'Uncle Cor' was one of the more celebrated and decorated war heroes in Lucis had turned him into an unapproachable paragon. He wasn't prepared to admit to himself that it hurt to lose some of the honest and forthright closeness of the boy's youth, but it was probably for the best anyway. It made him feel a touch less guilty about the way he had spied on the boy throughout his youth, perhaps he could rebuild the gap at a later date. It was only natural for teens to... grow up.

It still stung, just a bit, even years later when there was no 'sure thing, Uncle Cor' and instead 'whoa, the Immortal complimented me', but he'd probably earned it by then, and Cor had gotten a fine young man to be proud of out of the bargain.


End file.
